


Fake

by Vega62a



Category: Maria-sama ga Miteru
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-03-28
Updated: 2011-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-17 08:11:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/174738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vega62a/pseuds/Vega62a
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation of sorts of MariMite. Sachiko has graduated, and as her arranged marriage looms over her shoulder even her house seems like a prison now. Rated for yuri probably not so much implied as shoved in the reader's face. This is a repost from The Pit, but I am the original author. Light editing will be done. I'll be posting about one or two a week until it's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

Author's notes (Mine tend to be rather lengthy; you can mostly disregard them if you don't like reading A/Ns):

"Please take care of me" as read below would be the English equivalent of _yoroshiku onegaishimasu_ in Japanese, as opposed to some bizarre English monstrosity that I pulled out of my arse this morning. The intent is to imply formality. Were I less lazy or pretentious or whatever, I'd think of a translation that slides better into western ears.

Much of my information is taken from the manga, but it's my opinion that the Anime isn't really different than the manga, just less complete. Feel free to PM me with any complaints, though; I'm always open to constructive criticism.

And finally, while I generally refuse to put Japanese nominatives in an English fanfiction, I'm going to have to make an exception for "Sa-chan", as phrased by Kashiwagi, and _onee-sama,_ as spoken by others. There's just no good way to translate it, and it's too important to leave out. Sorry, all.

Disclaimer: My editor, Sumiregawa Nenene, did her best to make this fic something that a human could read without clawing their eyes out. All mistakes are mine and mine alone. Also, I don't own Maria-sama ga Miteru.

Reviews are always appreciated!

* * *

 _Here I know / how it feels / to be misunderstood / to reach for the sky / I thought you never would / you don't know how it feels / to be misunderstood / to reach for the sky, I thought you never would_

 _But I'm bleeding, and my hands are bruised / from the grip that I once had on you / and I'm open for a new way / cause there's not much more that I can fake_

* * *

Fake

A _Maria-sama ga Miteru_ story

* * *

Prologue

 _You love him, don't you?_ she said. _It must be hard to marry the one you love when you know they don't love you in return._

 _Please remember that this marriage has been arranged by your parents, and that any difficulties might upset them greatly,_ he said. _They are providing us with much to be thankful for, so you would do well to begin being thankful now._

 _If you're determined to go to university, then Suguru will, as well, so that you can be together there,_ they said. _This union will not wait for some useless scrap of paper displaying your knowledge to the world like a cheap banner._

None of them really understood. But of those who did not understand, only Yumi came within a field's length of understanding.

Suguru didn't understand that it wasn't the word _marriage_ that had hurt her when he said it. It was the word _arranged._ It was the way he said it like it was something normal, but normal like a pap smear was normal. Normal and not spoken of.

Her relatives, the key members of the Ogasawara group; they didn't understand that she wasn't going to university to escape what they wanted her to be. It was to try and merge that with what it was that _she_ wanted to be.

 _And Yumi..._

Yumi didn't understand how she could be both right and wrong at once. She didn't understand the depths of Sachiko Ogasawara's hatred for Suguru Kashiwagi, nor the magnitude of her love for him. Nobody understood that, least of all Sachiko herself, though certainly not for lack of trying. The true issue was not her hatred for men, after all. It was her hatred for the men she loved.

Her grandmother had told her before she died that it was a family trait.

If that was true, Sachiko wasn't sure she wanted to be a part of her family anymore. Not that she could escape it; running away from rich people was even harder than running away from taxes, because rich people were allowed to be ruthless, while the government forced itself to limit its methods to 'methodical', only half of the two necessary ingredients for ruthlessness.

Sachiko didn't know what the second ingredient was, but she had been told that being the trophy wife to a very rich, very powerful man would soon teach her. She wasn't sure she wanted to learn. Maybe that was why she wanted to go to get a degree in Japanese Literature, and then move on to a Master's degree in Japanese Language with an emphasis in creative writing. So that she could write her own definition of what _ruthless_ was.

Or maybe she just wanted to have someplace to retreat to. The true blessing of the learned is that they can always retreat to their learning; the higher pay is just icing on the cake.

These were things that Sachiko Ogasawara contemplated silently over her tea, every night before bed. She contemplated them, and other things, in front of her fiancé, and he never knew, because he never cared to find out. He had told her many times that he loved her, and she thought that maybe he had even meant it once or twice, but it had never been enough to allow him access to her bed; not that he would want such a thing, in any case. She knew that on their wedding night, they would probably have to do their matrimonial duty to each other—if only because _both_ families would be watching them so closely that they might as well be in the room with them—and, failing some ovarian curse, that would be the only time that they would even sleep in the same room.

Tonight was no different from any other summer evening: The sky had melted into a full, rich hue of dark, dark blue, splattered with myriad shadows of white clouds which contrasted the moon and the dim stars with sometimes breathtaking beauty.

It was breathtaking to Sachiko, anyway. She didn't know how her fiancé felt about it, because she, like him, never cared to find out.

He sometimes spoke of it, as he did tonight. "The moon is lovely tonight, don't you think?" he said, his deep, rich voice as soothing to her as it was repulsive. "Although the clouds make it seem like it will rain soon."

"Yes," she replied, falling back on the training that the Lillian School for Girls had supplied her. "It is." That one irreplaceable truth, the ultimate fall-back option: If you have nothing to say, or if you do not wish to speak to the person who demands that you speak to them, simply agree pleasantly with whatever it is that they are talking about. They will think, _ah, what a fine lady,_ and you may think whatever it is that you like. Sachiko had many things to think about, some of which did in fact concern Suguru, of which very few were particularly flattering.

 _And what about you?_ The thought appeared in her head without warning. _If he retreats to his--_ she had often pondered what to call a male mistress, but had yet to come to a conclusion _\--to satisfy his …needs—_

—a lady does not speak of such things in public—

 _Where will you satisfy yours?_

Sachiko thought first, ironically enough, of Sei Satou. Certainly not due to any lasting impressions the girl had made on her, either romantically or sexually. No, she thought of Sei because of how she knew Sei would react if she were to simply show up at her doorstep and beg for her affections for the night: Sei would simply smile, invite her inside, and hug her gently for a minute or two, and then remark, in a way that was not snide but was equally not polite or coddling, that she should probably go talk to Yumi, and that she, Sei Satou, would even be so kind as to escort her over to make sure she got there without angsting all over too many random passer-by. She wouldn't mean any of the hurtful comments; she would just say them, because that was how she was; but at the same time, Sachiko's pride would be satisfied by what would inevitably turn into a form of repartee, if only because Sachiko would never, ever "angst all over" anybody.

And then…just maybe…

"Sa-chan?" her fiancé said with a note of concern to his voice. She looked up at him and smiled politely. _Suguru Kashiwagi, 19_ , she thought musingly. _Very nice to meet you for this business venture. Please take care of me while I rip your sill-beating heart from your chest and consume it whole._ "I'm going to bed." The note was gone. Maybe it had never been there.

 _Funny,_ she thought. _For a moment, he even sounded concerned._

"Good night," she said. "Sleep well." _Simply agree politely…_

 _Bitterness is unbecoming of a lady._

He smiled. "I trust you will as well. Please don't stay up too late, or you'll be tired tomorrow."

For a moment, Sachiko recognized something in his voice, something familiar to her; perhaps they had taught him how to be a proper lady at that boys' school of his as well?

She wasn't allowed to smile at that thought until he was out of sight.

As soon as he was gone, she leaned back in her chair, just slightly, allowing her neck to crane backwards so that she could see the stars more easily; they really were beautiful tonight.

 _I want to go for a drive,_ Sachiko thought without warning. _I want to drive as far away from here as I can, and I want to see the stars from somewhere outside this_

compound

 _house._

Unfortunately, Sachiko Ogasawara could not drive. People drove her places; butlers, chauffeurs, people like that. _On one occasion, even Su…even Kashiwagi drove me somewhere._ An incident she was not likely to repeat. Ever.

 _Can I walk somewhere, instead?_ She wondered, and then immediately chastised herself for it. _One does not simply walk out of prison._ There were limits as to where she could go. Boundaries. Far ones, yes; her family owned a large stretch of land, and nobody was likely to stop her from wandering about, but there were walls eventually, and security guards. The Ogasawara family was not known for its trusting sentiments. Perhaps earlier, she would have been allowed to simply leave. Before she expressed an interest in going to University, anyway.

 _Or perhaps simply before they planned the wedding date._

That word forced her stomach into a knot every time it passed through her mind; _wedding._

Suguru had said to her, _if this is to be a marriage of convenience, then we can be married without interfering in each other's lives._ Maybe that didn't bother him, but then, she thought privately, in the same part of her brain that nurtured her devout Catholicism, Suguru also stopped, put his hands together, and said a brief prayer in front of a statue of Buddha every morning during his thirteen years of mandatory schooling.

 _But that's not the only reason you don't want to marry him…_

Maybe it was pretentious of her to think something like that, or maybe even something worse than that, but, ironically, it had been one of her most treasured thoughts ever since her marriage had been announced to her by her parents.

 _And maybe…just maybe, it's a little hypocritical of you, too._

Oddly enough, this had become one of her most treasured thoughts of late, too.

The voice that interrupted her thoughts was respectful, yet utterly disinterested. It was their head butler's foremost talent. "Miss Sachiko? There is a phone call for you."

 _Ah, yes. The Ogasawara family's most recent invention: The phone servant._ They had rerouted all calls to a single phone, which could then be transferred to any other phone in the house. They paid a man (or woman, Sachiko had no idea) to answer this phone and transfer it to the nearest available butler, who would give it to whoever was asked for. The phone-servant would do this, but their prime function, Sachiko knew, was to remember the voice and relate it to a caller-ID. Perhaps her relatives were now concerned that she was getting illicit phone calls from her…

 _ex-_

petite seour? The thought made her want to smile.

 _A lady should move slowly and deliberately. The hem of her skirt should always be tidy._

Indeed, even now, Sachiko was wearing a skirt, and it was, indeed, tidy, as she stood from her seat, gently, and walked slowly to the head butler, who displayed no impatience. He handed her the phone when she stopped moving, and then bowed and vanished somewhere.

"Ogasawara residence," she said politely, even though she knew whoever she was speaking to had heard it already from the phone-servant. "This is Sachiko speaking."

"Sachiko!" the voice maintained just the vaguest hint of the kind of formality that she would have expected of the girl on the other end of the line, the only girl in existence that could possibly have made her smile in quite the way that she was suddenly smiling now. She had, after all, trained her _petite seour_ better than this.

"How many times," Sachiko said gently, allowing the grin on her face to extend to her voice, "must I remind you to call me _onee-sama_ , Yumi?"

"I—I'm sorry, _onee-sama_ ," Yumi seemed a bit taken aback, which was to be expected of the girl. She had a tendency to react rather exaggeratedly to most anything. "I called because I wanted to ask…ah…" she broke off; her nervousness was practically radiating off of her voice. Sachiko could envision just about exactly what her face looked like right then.

All at once, Sachiko had about a million things she wanted to say to Yumi. It had been nearly a month and a half since her graduation, and she hadn't had a chance to see Yumi since then, and all of a sudden, her head was filled with words.

She spoke none of them. Rather, she said, "What was it you wanted to ask me, Yumi?" gently. _Prompt, but do not demand._ What's up _and_ what is it _are not acceptable ways to begin a conversation._

At some point, the line between what her family and what Lillian taught her about being a lady had blurred in her mind; she could no longer distinguish between the two.

"Oh! Yes!" Yumi blurted. Sachiko could hear her forcing her voice to be something other than a blurt, and after a moment, she continued, more controlled this time, "I called because I wanted to …to invite you to come on a picnic with Yoshino, Shimako, Rei, and I. On the, ah…the day after tomorrow."

It was strange. Yumi had improved vastly in her discipline in her second year at Lillian; she would rarely have made this much of a fool of herself there. Somehow, this warmed Sachiko's heart just a little.

She didn't allow herself to react that way to the invitation, however. "I would very much like to," she replied calmly, and from there, the details were worked out in an unexciting manner; They would all make their respective ways to the bank of a river not far from Sachiko's house—really, the driveway would be the bulk of her trip—and eat there at one in the afternoon. After that, they would retire to the house of someone with whom Sachiko was familiar—a friend of her grandmother's, who had seen her just before her passing—and have tea there.

Sachiko made her promises, and hung up shortly after. Somehow, the head butler was there only a moment after the phone _beeped_ off to take it from her. Perhaps this should have unnerved her, but it didn't. Not now.

She was going to see Yumi, after all.

For the first time in more than a month, she was going to see Yumi.

 _Yumi._

Then she banished the thought and went back outside to consider the stars for a moment longer. They seemed, somehow, even more inviting than they had before.

Sachiko slept peacefully that night. Moreso than she had in weeks, and though she looked, the next day, precisely the same as she had the day before, she was utterly different inside.

 _Yumi._


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: My editor, Sumiregawa-kun, is also my Wise Old Mistress of Marimite facts. It is, however, my responsibility to incorporate her wisdom into my fics, so all mistakes are mine and mine alone. Also, I don't own Maria-sama ga Miteru.

I hate sticking Japanese in my fictions, but once again, I find it unavoidable, so here are your translations:

 _Onee-sama:_ Big sister. Used by _petite soeurs_ at Lillian to address their _grande soeurs._ Very formal.

 _So tired / sleeping through the day / bloodshot eyes and / the sweat from my body / and I picked my head up yesterday / found no reason or hope left inside of me._

 _But I still believe in immortal love / and I know there's someone who's up above / and shine down / just give me a chance to feel it_

 _\--_

Chapter 2

Shine down

\--

The bulk of the next day passed largely without incident, and although Sachiko was so overflowing with excitement that she came very close to walking quickly when the phone rang around seven in the evening, overall she did not act much differently than she usually did. In any case, neither the butlers nor Suguru noticed any change in her.

The phone was answered by the phone servant before she could possibly have reached it, even at an unthinkably fast mild trot. She managed to slow down before anybody noticed, and it turned out that the phone wasn't for her anyway. It was for her mother, who was out for the week.

A few minutes later, Sachiko retreated to the patio, finding Suguru strangely absent; typically, they spent this part of the evening here. Had he, perhaps, gone out for the evening? Sachiko wondered briefly how he had managed to sneak past the servants who doubled as door guards, before finally concluding that he probably hadn't gone out so much as locked himself in one of the house's many rooms. He did that sometimes; he did it more when the house was as it was now, empty save for the servants and

 _is he hiding from_

herself.

Sachiko shook her head, trying to remind herself of how unconcerned she was. He wasn't here, and that was the important thing. She was unthreatened. She could do what _she_ wanted to do, in the kind of peace and quiet that she privately believed every sane human should seek; the perfect, dead silence of the night. That, in fact, had been why her family had chosen to build their manor so far away from the main road; it was near-impossible to hear even the noisiest of cars passing by the front gate from where Sachiko was now.

After a moment's consideration, Sachiko stood and switched the patio light off, bathing her in nearly perfect darkness. As she settled back into her chair, she felt the silence overwhelm her even further, and not unpleasantly—she felt her muscles relax, felt her mind untwist itself; as though the disruption of the patio's protective light had allowed the night's tranquility to extend just that much further into Sachiko.

A moment later, however, the night erupted into noise; a simple, electronic tone filled the air with its rigid, flat impression of Beethoven's 8th Symphony, and it took Sachiko a moment to realize that it was coming from the pocket of her nightgown. She quickly reached in, wondering why in the world she had placed her cellular phone in her nightgown for a moment before remembering that it was because she had been waiting for Yumi to call. She flipped it open and glanced momentarily at the Caller-ID.

 _Youko Mizuno,_ it said; if she felt any immediate discontent, she forced it to the bottom of her throat as she accepted the call and placed the phone gently to her ear, brushing her hair out of the way with her unused hand. "Yes," she said, _Ogasawara residence…no._ "Sachiko Ogasawara speaking."

"Sachiko?" Youko's voice was as flat and subtly interested as it had always been. "This is Youko Mizuno." _Ladyship for the new age: Even though they can read your name as plain as day off of their screen; even if they knew exactly who they were calling as they dialed, you must always introduce yourself as though you were meeting them for the first time in many years._ "It's been a while." _Youko doesn't ask how people are doing._

"It has. I hope you're well?" _Even if you are as close as the petals on a rose, you will still speak to your_ onee-sama _as though she were a priest. Even if it is your first meeting in years, you will not become overexcited. You will speak as calm and evenly as a lady always should._

"I am. My summer classes have just let out, and I'm quite enjoying my newfound freedom, though my fall classes will start soon." _That's right. Youko is considering medical school, so she's taking a lot of classes right now. She's—_

 _—even if you come upon your best friend, intimate with the man you love, you will not allow jealousy to touch your lips—_

"That's good."

"And what about you?" Oddly enough, Youko's voice seemed, to the well-trained ear, almost slightly miffed. "Have you made plans to attend a university?"

Sachiko was strangely grateful to her old friend and _grande soeur_ for asking the question. "Yes, I have," she said. "I'm planning on attending the University of Kyoto in the spring."

"Oh?" Youko sounded genuinely interested. "To study what?"

"I'd like to study literature. And after that…" Sachiko hesitated, toying briefly with the idea of confessing to her _grande soeur_ that she wanted to learn to write. Not that it wasn't a desirable profession for a lady; only that it wasn't a desirable profession for _her._ For Sachiko Ogasawara, heir to the Ogasawara Group and all of its fortune and wealth, trophy wife, and future recipient of the vaunted _quiet life._ Youko knew better than anybody that Sachiko wanted a _quiet life,_ but not quite _that_ quiet of a life. Youko knew better than anybody that Sachiko was not a trophy wife.

She knew it better, perhaps, than even Sachiko herself.

"What did you want to do after that?" Youko gently prompted, but did not demand.

Still, Sachiko hesitated. This felt to Sachiko strangely like she had felt when she had first realized that Suguru wasn't interested in her not because he was interested in another woman, but because he was interested in another _man._

 _It also feels strangely like…_

"I'd like to pursue my Master's in Japanese Language with an emphasis on creative writing. I think I'd like to write for a living."

 _That's not even remotely true,_ Sachiko thought as soon as she said it. The truth was, Sachiko had no idea what she wanted to do for a living; it was almost universally common in university pre-first years; very few of them ever really had a grasp on exactly what it was they wanted to do or be. Sachiko only knew what she'd be _allowed_ to do, and she knew that out of all of those things, writing seemed the most enjoyable. _To write your own definitions._ She had previously tried her hand at it once or twice, and while the quality of her work had been praised by Suguru, who had

 _been in my room_

found it laying around, thanks to a careless mistake by Sachiko, the experience had been so emotionally and mentally exhausting, and she was still not sure that she wanted to have to do something like that for the rest of her life. She only knew that she _could,_ which had tipped the scales in her decision.

"Really," Youko said without the slightest hint of enthusiasm; a clear sign of disbelief if ever there was one. "That's wonderful. I must say, though, that I'm rather surprised that you were able to decide this all of a sudden."

"All of a sudden?" _Can a question be a lie?_

"Yes," Youko said. "It's just that I seem to recall quite clearly how gracefully you managed to avoid the question every time somebody asked you about your plans for the future. What was it that you used to say?" She paused for a moment, and Sachiko sighed, waited for her to say it.

 _I'm really not sure where precisely I want to direct my life at this point, although I plan on going to the University of Kyoto, and I'm certain that I'll decide soon, thank you for asking._

"Sa-chan?" To say that Suguru's voice, coming from behind Sachiko, startled her would be an understatement. At his words, her eyes flew fully open, and her mind immediately reeled, unable to focus and tell her, _it's just Suguru, calm down_ as her free hand clenched itself into a fist.

It was Youko's voice that undid the temporary knot of panic that formed in her head. "Oh my," she said, "is that Kashiwagi I hear? What would he be doing there?"

"He lives here now," Sachiko said quickly. "Please hold on for a moment." She allowed herself to relax, and then covered the mouthpiece on the cellular phone as best she could, turned to Suguru, and said, "What is it?"

"Yumi Fukuzawa is on the phone for you," he said with a small grin that was contradicted utterly by the small look of concern in his eyes. "Who is on the phone?"

"Youko Mizuno. Could you ask Yumi to hold for a moment? I'll take the phone shortly." _Why did he come out to tell me himself? Did he kill the phone-servant?_ She mused, a bit humored.

"Very well," he said, and then exited with a grace befitting of a lady's stature.

This thought probably caused the mild note of amusement in Sachiko's voice when she said, "Pardon me, Youko, but I have a call from Yumi on the other phone."

Youko seemed disinterested in this, but rather focused on Sachiko's voice. "You sound amused," she pointed out. "What is it?"

Suddenly, Sachiko desperately wanted to tell Youko about her seemingly running joke about Suguru. She wanted Youko to laugh about it with her, and tell her…tell her _something_ about something related yet inconsequential that would make Sachiko want to laugh as well. Sachiko would, of course, hold her own laugh in, but she would feel it nonetheless, building at the back of her throat, tickling her lungs pleasantly, but more important than that, comfortingly. Youko had an unacknowledged ability to turn a conversation in virtually whatever direction she wanted it to go in, and to provoke nearly whatever reaction she desired from her audience. It helped, of course, that she was an excellent public speaker.

None of this happened, of course. Rather, Sachiko said, quietly, "Nothing. It's nothing. I simply felt the urge to cough; excuse me."

"Of course." It seemed as though statements which asserted nothing, yet were lies nonetheless were becoming increasingly common. "I suppose you shouldn't keep your _petite soeur_ waiting for too long, should you?"

Something about the way that Youko said _petite soeur_ made Sachiko uncomfortable, but she couldn't put her finger on _what_ , precisely. "No, I shouldn't. I'm very sorry to cut you short." _When an apology is as common as punctuation, as routine as formalities, does that make it any less sincere? Was it sincere in the first place?_ Sachiko felt that this would be a question that would haunt her for a long, long time to come, and therefore resolved not to think on it any longer; at least, not yet.

"Not at all," Youko said. "I will call back again sometime."

"I'll look forward to it." _That,_ at least, wasn't a lie. As little as they had done it during her time at school, speaking with her _grande soeur_ was something Sachiko genuinely enjoyed. It was like talking with …with a close sibling.

 _Like talking with a big sister._

Not that Sachiko would know anything about that.

A click, and Youko was gone. A moment later, the phone servant, alive and apparently unhurt (though Sachiko still felt a small niggle in the back of her head tell her to check his wrists for cuff marks ) was behind her with a cordless phone in his hand, the mouthpiece covered. Sachiko nodded her thanks and put the receiver to her ear with a small burst of excitement that she mercilessly squashed.

"Yumi?" she said. "I'm sorry to have made you wait." _When an apology is as routine as formality…_

 _It can still be sincere._

"It's no problem," Yumi said cheerfully. She was, by Sachiko's observation, completely unfazed by her wait, something Sachiko could only marvel at. "I'm sorry to have called so late."

"It's not that late," Sachiko said a bit too quickly. Yumi said nothing about the slip. "What was it that you called about?"

"I wanted to confirm our plans for the picnic tomorrow; is one in the afternoon still okay?"

"Of course," Sachiko said gently. She desperately wanted to add, _it's not like I'm doing anything else,_ but couldn't, left rather to hope against hope that Yumi would pick up on it without any sort of hinting from her. In short, she was praying for a sudden wave of ESP to strike her _petite soeur._

And it did. "Are you alright, _onee-sama?_ " Yumi's concern was genuine, and because of that it was astoundingly refreshing. Yumi was typically refreshing in that way.

 _If being refreshing becomes as common as punctuation…_

Another question that needed no answer. Sachiko couldn't help but grin a little. "Of course I am, Yumi. Of course I am."

"I'm glad." And she very obviously was. "So, tomorrow at one, is that alright?"

"Yes, that's exactly it. Will you have any trouble with that?"

"None. It's settled."

"It is."

A moment of silence formed between them, and the niggle started working at the back of Sachiko's head again.

 _Say it,_ it said. _Say it to her this time. You said something like it once before. Say it._

Sachiko didn't argue, but she didn't obey either. It was harder than it seemed, and she had no idea where Suguru was, and even though _saying it_ wouldn't present any sort of news to him, she was still loathe to admit _anything_ around the man, much less something important.

 _You still act like Suguru is your enemy. He's not. None of this is his fault. He's as trapped and helpless as you are._

 _And even so…_

 _Say it._

She couldn't. She knew it. Not on the phone. Not in her home. She couldn't.

She would have to make do. "I'm very glad that you called, Yumi," she said. "And I'm glad that you invited me, too."

"I'm sorry I couldn't call sooner." This could have meant many things, but Sachiko was content to assume it meant all of them. "I missed you, Sa- _onee-sama_."

She was beginning to slip like that more frequently, and it made Sachiko secretly happy.

 _Very_ secretly.

"Where are you going tomorrow?" Suguru's voice cut Sachiko like a length of piano wire. Sachiko had overcome the urge to be defensive long ago; more than a decade ago, in fact, so she was able to take this with the kind of grace and calm that had won her the admiration of a good portion of her old classmates. "I didn't hear anything about this."

"I'm surprised you heard about it at all," Sachiko said evenly, "considering that I hadn't told you anything of it."

Suguru shrugged. "That's why I'm asking where you're going; because you didn't tell me anything about it."

"Just down to the river off the edge of our property. My _petite soeur_ and I are going to have a picnic there, and then have tea with an old friend. Is that a problem?" Loosely translated: Do you think you can justify having a problem with that?

"Not at all. I'm simply surprised that you hid this from me."

"I apologize for not informing you sooner, but I had no intent of hiding anything from you. I'm sorry." _When apologies are as routine as formalities…_

"Of course," Suguru said, with a note of spite in his voice that Sachiko didn't understand in the least. "Enjoy yourself tomorrow." And then he was gone, leaving Sachiko fairly well baffled. She had never seen him act like that before.

 _You did once._

 _We're not thinking about that, though._

Unfortunately, Sachiko spent a large portion of the rest of the night thinking about that.

The worst part was, of course, that she could barely gather from the scattered fragments in her brain what _that_ was.

 


	4. Chapter 4

Author's notes:

Good lord, it's been a while. Almost two months. I'm quite sorry about that, but now I'm back, and with school and all the "I'm leaving again" angst that's sure to heap on me, there's probably plenty of writing in it for you.

If you hadn't noticed, each of my chapter titles is actually a song name or lyric. Point out any of the artists and win a gold star.

When Suguru announces the arrival of our first two lovely ladies, you should take "miss" to mean something like "-sama." I have written them family-name last, in all spite of tradition, for continuity.

Finally, I am not going to explain the joke about 'powdering the nose' unless people really don't get it, in which case you'll see it in the next set of author's notes.

\--

 _How could I believe when this cloud hangs over me/ You're the part of me that I don't want to see._

 _I could live forever here._

 _\--_

Chapter 3

Forget it

 

"Sa-chan?" Suguru's voice found its way into Sachiko's room like so many unwelcome peeping toms. She heard it all too clearly, standing in front of her mirror re-combing her hair for the third time—a lady's vanity, one of the many things nobody expected of her, and one of the many things she would never, ever let onto, as testified to by her dozens of fans at Lillian who positively swore that she leapt out of bed each morning with her hair looking like the very symbol of perfection that it was. "You have guests." His voice was astonishingly curt. There was no hint of the halfway-upbeat teasing, nor of the subtle, untraceable note of

 _spite_

distaste _that was only to be expected from a man of his tastes who was destined to be wed to a woman such as myself,_ Sachiko quickly rationalized, not wanting to delve into psycho-analyzing his voice overly much. Not now, anyway. "Who is it?" she asked as pleasantly as possible, forcing herself to ignore Suguru's obvious irritability. _Getting into character,_ said that mean, hateful little voice inside of her head, that voice that, try as she might, she could not get to stop sounding so much like her mother's.

"Miss Rei Hasekura," he said, intoning their names as formally as they themselves had probably done as they announced their arrival, "And Miss Yoshino Shimazu. They await you downstairs. I told them," he said ironically, "that you had to finish powdering your nose."

In all spite of her mood and his, Sachiko had to clamp a hand firmly over her mouth at that to stifle her laugh. It was a joke her mother would have never even acknowledged, and one which any woman of good  
 _sheltering_  
breeding would never have expected a man to make. _And don't forget to wipe,_ he would have finished, were he a man of worse breeding than he was. Even in his irritable mood, however, he would never openly admit to making a _(heaven forbid)_ dirty joke.

She wondered about that, in any case—were he truly in so foul a mood, he would never have bothered to make her laugh like that. _He would simply keep it to himself and laugh at me in his room as he  
A lady does not brood. Not even about  
Not thinking about that._

She refused to marvel, as she would have liked to, over how spiteful she herself could be, however. She had guests waiting for her, and she supposed her hair would have to do. "Kashi…" _be nice._ "Suguru," she called back suddenly, without entirely knowing why. Maybe just to see if he was still there.

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

"Anything for my lady," he said quietly, his voice still ironic. "I will make sure not to intrude upon your meal, and I'll take your calls personally."

She felt a pang of guilt at this, and didn't entirely know why, but it didn't go away as the sound of his footsteps clomped down the hall, fading quickly into nothingness.

Sachiko frowned and took one final, almost obligatory glance into the mirror. She had considered dressing as she usually did for parties and events—an entirely conservative _kimono_ in her choice of red, purple, or blue, complete with sash and clunky wooden sandals. Today, however, was different. She justified it by telling herself that she was going outside, and that such unpragmatic dress would only lead to disaster at some point or another, but what was important was the result: A simple cream-colored coat with a light-blue button-up shirt underneath _(which you must never undo even if it becomes so hot that the lakes themselves begin to boil they'll see your shoulders)_ and pants which hugged her form and hid it all at once, wrought from a black, silken material. She wore shoes that weren't quite dress shoes, but weren't entirely sneakers, either. She wore a silk scarf as well _(to hide your neck from the men)_ but she would probably remove that _(you slut)_ if it became too hot _(you must never become a slut like them they never wear scarves and always remove their coats to show their shoulders)._

She decided it was fine, ignored her mother's voice, now veritably screaming at her, and exited her room.

It was far easier to move in these shoes, she decided, than it was in those wooden clogs. Easier to stand up straight, to not trip. Not that she ever tripped in any event, but walking in these, she felt a huge, unfathomable burden lifted from her shoulders as she went. She felt casual, she felt comfortable. _(Dangerous things)._ She felt…something very much like happiness flooding through her, in fact. For the first time in months, there were friends waiting for her in her house. _And soon, Yumi._ At this thought, her house started immediately to seem less like a  
 _prison_  
big, empty castle and more like …

More like home.

She was able to descend the wide, short stairs almost silently, something she marveled at, but she did not revel so in walking that she failed to stop, as she always did, at the door just before the guest room where Suguru or one of the servants would have undoubtedly directed Rei and Yoshino to by now. She stopped there because of the mirror which hung on the door; a small thing, at face level, so that she could see her expression very clearly in it.

 _More important than makeup or hair is your expression, which you must always check before you greet even your closest friends, because your expression_ is _makeup. If incorrectly applied, people will think worse of you, much like a woman who heaps on too much or applies none at all; and like makeup, small hints and changes applied in simply innocuous areas can make all the difference in the world to that end._

She found her expression needed very little touching up, which pleased her. Her mouth was naturally curved up in a polite grin, though it was a little too open for her  
 _mother's_  
tastes. She fixed it easily, and then opened the door.

The next room was by and far the most plush and cushy in the house—it had to be, her mother had said when they furnished it, because it was the room in which you inconvenienced your guests to wait. The walls were a gentle, soothing cream color, spotlessly painted, with pictures of landscapes, both painted and photographed, all along it. The couches which lined it were the same color, and the most comfortable in the house. There was music coming from hidden speakers in the walls, gentle and traditional, and the carpet—the only room that was carpeted—was smooth, not rough and grainy like most rugs.

In all, a perfect room for a deception, if one was needed. Which it wasn't.

Rei and Yoshino were seated on the center and right edge, respectively, of the couch facing Sachiko, dressed simply in jeans and sweaters—Sachiko was used to being silently accused of overdressing—and both smiled openly and unguardedly as she entered, and rose to meet her as gentlemen might. They both bowed deeply and formally, though Yoshino's was anxious and frustrated, and then moved towards her and, before she could protest, threw their arms around her at once.

The hug was brief and sisterly, and the room was empty, but still Sachiko felt heat rise to her cheeks. Perhaps it was simply relief. If they were offended at her inaction, they didn't show it. Likely they simply knew her well. "Sachiko," Rei smiled. "It's been a while."

"It has," Sachiko returned pleasantly. "I hope you've been well." _Gently prompt._

"I have, and so has Yoshino." She indicated the girl next to her, who _hmphed_ at being spoken for.

" _I have indeed_ been well, as _Onee-sama_ pointed out," she interjected. Rei blushed a little and shrugged, as though to say, _there's no helping it,_ and for the second time that day, Sachiko held in a laugh. It was a most wonderful thing to her, though if she kept doing this, she would lose her control shortly. "How have you been?"

 _Why even keep it in?_

 _Because she's not here._ Seemed the only valid explanation. "I've been quite well, thank you." _Now tell them the happy news. Tell them you're engaged, and they'll smile and congratulate me and ask me when the wedding is and I can get back to acting._ "I've …"

They looked at her expectantly.

 _But then I don't get to see her. Not really._

 _Can't you enjoy yourself, just this once? Let your hair down, unbutton your_ (slut) _coat, have fun like a real human being? Just this once? Who's going to see you, but the silent butlers and Suguru?_

It pained her a little to realize that she had come into this endeavor not even planning to have fun. Not planning to enjoy herself.

Pained her and disgusted her.

Her mother would say the outside world had made her soft.

Right now, she wasn't sure what she'd have to say to that.

But forget it. If she was doomed to a life of taking lovers in marriage to Suguru, of forced servitude to the beast called marriage, then why not forget about it for just a day? Just one little day.

Right?

"Chosen what I think I want to do with the rest of my life."

They both seemed honestly delighted. She had never regarded herself as directionless, any more than any other high school student, but she got the feeling that some did, as they questioned her about her intended major and she, having given it no more thought than was necessary to get her mother off her back, replied as gracefully as possible that she was still uncertain.

"What is it? Do you know your major, or do you have a career path chosen?"

"Both," she said. "I'd like to pursue a degree in Japanese literature and composition, and become a writer."

Yoshino seemed surprised, but Rei clamped her hand over the girl's mouth and smiled. It was obvious that she was going to say something important, but she held it back, only smiling. "I think it's perfect," she said. "Absolutely perfect for you."

The bitter little thing in the back of her head said, _Why? Because I'm the kind of girl who ought to be held in captivity for the rest of her life? Because if I'm to be confined to a room or two, I'd best learn how to entertain myself?_

 _These are my friends, you bitch. How dare you?_

The last surprised even Sachiko. She said it in her head, to her mother's voice, and the voice abruptly vanished. It didn't act shocked or offended. Simply disappeared at the slightest hint of resistance.

 _Just like before._

"Thank you," she said quietly. "I appreciate that."

Rei smiled. "It just happens that I'm doing the same thing."

 _This_ surprised Sachiko. Rei had never been any great shakes with words or, really, with art. She was very feminine, but her taste in books leaned very painfully towards the romantic and very painfully _away_ from the well-respected. In reality, she wasn't that different from Yoshino, whose tastes fell along the lines of Ikenami Shoutarou, sports, and Akira Kurosawa.

"Really," Sachiko said in a pleasant, _I have no idea what else to say to that_ tone. "Do you know what you plan to do with it?"

"History," Rei said at once, as though she'd been rehearsing it. "Literature history fascinates me. I think I'll probably get my doctorate, and then go back and teach at a university."

 _That_ sounded a little more like Rei. Rei had always been an impressive teacher—anybody on the Kendo team could have attested to that. Even so…

 _Didn't her parents put up a fit?_

 _Didn't yours?_

Sachiko still didn't know how to deal with that.

Apparently, she didn't have to. A moment later, the doorbell rang again. Without even having to think about it, as though informed by some sixth sense, Sachiko's heart leapt  
 _Yumi._  
and she started for the door, quickly. She was certain that had she been entertaining  
 _real_  
guests  
 _not friends_

she would have received funny looks for moving so quickly, or, really, at all, when she had _people_ to do _that sort of thing._

However, the fact remained that she _had_ people to do that sort of thing, and sometimes it seemed like they sat at the door _(see A/N below)_ waiting for people to arrive. Maybe they did. Sachiko, her heart half in her belly and half in her throat, could only freeze and pretend she hadn't done anything at all as she heard the door open, and the pleasant, disinterested voices of her butlers greet somebody  
 _Yumi._  
in a pleasant, disinterested way that seemed to stretch on into infinity, heaping formality after formality after formality after _fucking formality  
a lady is patient.  
don't dare explode like that aloud_  
onto the new guests. And they, of course, were required to do the same in return, and so Sachiko was forced to wait there, staring straight at the door, nearly choking on her heart. She was certain that Rei and Yoshino were staring at her (though, in reality, they were doing nothing of the sort: They understood how she felt better than she could have possibly fathomed) but she felt comfortable enough around them not to care. Or maybe she couldn't help it.

At first, the only voice returning the greetings was the one that Sachiko most distinctly did not want to hear, the one that she didn't ask to attend: Sei. "Thank you very much for inviting us into your house," she said. The butler returned her pleasantry and she retaliated, "No, don't worry about us, we'll just announce ourselves. I'm nowhere near rich enough for that." A polite chuckle from the butler, and then, something that made her ears alive again, tingling and electric: A light, high voice, pleasant, restrained and yet genuine, laughing.

 _Yumi._

Every muscle in Sachiko's body began to tug at her, to force her to move, to scream, _go, go, GO TO HER._ Every muscle, every fiber of her heart, body, soul, and mind. Every synapse in her head sparked, all spelling the same thing, except one.

That one little voice.

That one little _f—  
A lady does not curse, not even to herself. How many times must I remind you of that, you stupid girl?_  
That one little voice. The voice she called _mother,_ and that her mother called _breeding,_ or perhaps _training_. The one that said: _Wait here. It won't be much longer, and think of how much face you'll save._

 _And speaking of face, check your expression. It's running down your cheeks._

And on command, Sachiko straightened her face immediately, and turned to Rei and Yoshino, who were simply waiting politely, hands folded in their laps, eyes staring at nothing at all, not waiting, simply _there._ "I apologize for the wait," she said, "but it seems two more of our guestshave arrived. If you'd like a refreshment while we wait for the final one, I would be more than happy to get you one."

The door opened, and Sachiko hadn't ever cared about refreshments. Rei and Yoshino didn't mind.

" _Onee-sama?_ "

Yumi's voice was exactly as she remembered it, even as nervous and uncertain as it was now. The phone couldn't even come close to matching it. It never even occurred to Sachiko that the waiting had made her half-crazy as she thought about how distorted it all seemed over that stupid wire. She wanted to run for Yumi, to sweep her up in her arms, hug her, tell her how much she missed her. She wanted to stare into the eyes of her _petite soeur,_ and

"Yumi!" she said calmly, feigning that her delight was only a polite feint, as she always did. "It has been a while."

"It…" It was obvious, even to an untrained eye as Sachiko's, that Yumi was working very hard not to do what Sachiko had  
 _needed to_  
thought about doing. "It has. I hope you've been well, _Onee-sama_?"

Sachiko smiled evenly. _Stop it, Yumi. Just come for me. God, I've missed you. Stop it. I know I trained you to do it, but don't listen to me, I'm just a stupid_

"I have. I've…" _Missed you._

"I've missed you, _Onee-sama,_ " Yumi said as gently as she could. She _was_ learning—not two months ago, she'd have cried it out, and dashed for Sachiko. As of now, she simply walked quickly, but the result was certainly the same: A moment later, Sachiko felt Yumi's warm body pressing up against her, and without thinking about it, she folded her arms around the girl and _squeezed._

 _Yumi._

She kept smiling.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's notes

In the last chapter, I put forth a joke about "powdering Sachiko's nose," but did not explain it. It's rather my own private joke, I realize, so this was not entirely fair to you. Perhaps some of you caught the Pulp Fiction reference, but this wasn't my intended interpretation. Rather, the joke was based on my own observations about life. Namely, that "powdering one's nose" is, in fact, Lady for "taking a shit."

…Ba-dum-kchhhhh. Weak payoff, brother. Don't quit your day job, I know.

Thanks to my editor, Sumiregawa Nenene, for making this legible, as always!

And now, on with the show!

* * *

 _The higher you are / the farther you fall_

* * *

Chapter four

The house that Jack built #1

Those next few moments were a suture for a long-aching burn inside of Sachiko. Like a weak, arthritic joint or an old scar that never quite healed right, something in Sachiko had ached, had _been_ aching since she left Lillian, to the point where sometimes it physically burned at her, underneath her breast; a powerful, gnawing pain that would sometimes last for hours on end. But like that old proverbial bullet wound, even if it hurt constantly, it only really _burned_ sometimes, on those odd days when it was about to rain, when she sat on it wrong, when she saw  
 _a happy family_  
something sticky-sweet on television. The old hurt never really gave her cause for thought, nor pause except in her most private moments, when she might nurse it for a while, but if she had thought on it long and hard—which she had not—she might have really taken note of it, rather than accepting it as something that was simply a part of her life, and as far as she was concerned, always had been. It had become something so normal to her that when it suddenly vanished in a single moment of fluttering stomachs and interlocked bodies, she felt as though the entire world had suddenly stopped leaning on her shoulders and found some other new sap to roll on for a while. All of her pain evaporated, all of her worry and doubt and  
 _hate_  
tension, and she felt her whole body relax, like that old war veteran after a small operation finally found that old wood splinter that had lodged itself in his shoulder that he had been calling a bullet from a Nazi sniper for so long.

Suddenly, the world didn't seem quite so bleak after all.

And then, all at once, she became aware of everybody else's gaze. Not on her, of course. That would have been hopelessly impolite. Rather, the entire room, save for that one blank patch where she and Yumi stood, had become the target of her guests' interest, and she and her _petite soeur_ had become that impossible anti-space, the blank spot in the universe. It was polite, but it was  
 _what the hell do you think you're doing in front of all of your guests your expression is piling at your feet in a sludge_  
agonizing.  
Sachiko's family hosted a lot of gatherings for a lot of very rich, important men, which meant that they also played host to a lot of very young,  
 _more_  
beautiful trophy wives. Because of the transient nature of that lifestyle, there was never a shortage of weddings to gossip on and ooh and aah over, and there was never a shortage of newlyweds—of horny old men, desperate to sire a child and prove to themselves that they weren't really _that_ old, and of beautiful young women who know that the size of their alimony check would one day be directly related to the extent that they put out for their husbands. So there was always the _one_ couple. The _one  
dingy  
at least Suguru isn't_  
old man who simply could not keep his paws off of his new wife, especially after the _sake_ had made a few rounds around the party. And as soon as his control slipped, people simply found other places to look, quietly thinking, _what a disgusting old man_ and saying what a lovely couple they were, all the while not really paying attention to what _they_ had been doing at all. He became the center of attention in the room, the heretic you were forbidden to so much as look at.

And now, suddenly, Sachiko felt that man. That dirty old man, unable to keep his paws off of the pretty women, simply because he thought he had the money for it. She released her _petite soeur_ immediately, bringing her out to shoulder's length so quickly that it was almost a shove, and smiled as best she could at her. All at once, light ceased to slide around her and she became a living, visible, tangible entity again. At the same time, Yumi's open, ear-to-ear smile faded a little as she saw something she couldn't quite interpret in Sachiko's expression.

"It's good to see you, Yumi," Sachiko said politely, mustering her strength, smiling, and forcing herself to forget about that old, dirty  
 _Not thinking about that.  
_  
"It's good to see you, _onee-sama_ ," Yumi replied with equal politeness, and the kind of emptiness in her voice that signified that she was becoming a true lady. Sachiko felt that old hurt start to return again, and familiarity seemed to return to the world.

Painful, agonizing familiarity.

 _Would you like that?_

Painful, agonizing familiarity, followed by a painful, agonizing silence as the rest gazed at the two of them, and Sachiko gazed at Yumi, seeing nothing else for a second. She didn't see Rei's hand tighten on the hem of Yoshino's skirt. She didn't see Shimako Toudo walk in, silent and unannounced, and freeze at the door, perhaps out of panic, or an uncanny sense of atmosphere and moment. She didn't even see Sei, grimacing, the lines of her pretty face flat and unemotional but her large, normally clear eyes scrunching up into an expression of disapproval, bordering anger.

She saw none of this. She only saw the emptiness, and perhaps the first glimmer of a tear in Yumi's eye, and she wanted to scream in a thousand different ways, _no, that's not it, please don't!_

And maybe, inside, she did scream a little.

And something screamed back at her.

 _YOUR GUESTS ARE STARING AT YOU!_ It screamed, its voice less that of her mother now than that of a screeching, swooping harpy. _What in the hell do you think you're doing, you stupid girl? Your guests are sitting there uncomfortably and_ STARING AT YOU! _GET BACK IN THERE AND TALK TO HIM._ The last words were so shrill and painful in her head that Sachiko had to press her head to her temple to stem off a small tide of pain that erupted there.

And then the pain traveled elsewhere. Underneath her breast, where it flared and burned. She had felt it before, especially in recent months, but never this intensely—now it felt like a small sunspot had formed in her chest. She drew in a hefty breath once, twice, three times, and forced the pain down, and it almost came back up through her esophagus. Yumi's form began to blur out, and she shook her head, hard. Her guests were _really_ beginning to stare now. Sei had left her spot by the wall, and Yumi, all hurt gone from her eyes, reached out and touched her shoulder.

" _Onee-sama_?" Yumi's voice was small and a little frightened. "Are you all right?"

 _OF COURSE YOU'RE ALL RIGHT YOU STUPID GIRL GET UP RIGHT NOW BEFORE I HAVE TAKASHI TAKE YOU IN BACK AND SPANK YOU  
THAT "DIRTY OLD MAN" IS RICH AND POWERFUL AND YOU SHOULD BE GODDAMN HONORED TO BE BREATHING THE SAME _AIR _THAT HE IS_  
The pain was starting to concentrate. In her lungs.

 _Get up?_

Sachiko was suddenly staring at the hem of Yumi's dress, rather than her pretty, expressive face, and Yumi uttered a small shriek, and then Sei was there, _Sei_ of all people, moving faster than a thin waif of a girl like her should have ever been able to move. She caught Sachiko on the way down and eased her to the ground, and now Sachiko was staring at the ceiling and fighting to keep her gorge down, unable to even _think_ about moving coherently as she fought inside of her to keep what _was_ inside of her from spilling out.

" _Onee-sama?_ " Yumi's face appeared in her vision, blocking the ceiling out. "What's wrong, Sachiko? What—"

The door opened and a male voice said, "Please move aside. I'll take care of this." Powerful hands gripped under her armpits, and yanked her up so that her torso was almost perpendicular to the ground. The pain spread down to her stomach now, and then there was something poking at her mouth. Something hard and powdery, tasting vaguely of chalky fruit.

"Aspirin," Sachiko rasped, astounded at how bad her voice sounded. "Give me some aspirin and I'll be fine."

"I think," the voice said, "that you've had quite enough aspirin for one month, Miss Ogasawara." The voice was formal and respectful and a little chastising all at once.

 _THERE NOW TAKASHI WILL TAKE YOU OVER HIS KNEE AND_

"Please eat these. You will feel better."

"What's wrong with her?" Rei asked, her voice a little strained with panic.

"Nothing," the voice  
 _(TAKASHI)_  
said. "She is simply feeling ill in her stomach. Miss Ogasawara, please chew these. You will feel much better."

Somebody's hand pressed at the edges of her teeth, near her molars and her cheekbones, and Sachiko tried to clamp her mouth tighter. What were they doing? Didn't they know if she opened her mouth, she'd—

Her mouth opened and a great, powerful belch slid out of her throat, wet and painful and relieving all at once. Stomach acid dabbled at the back of her palate, and she swallowed it back down. Her vision cleared all at once, and her stomach and breast settled enough that she could move again. The man behind her stuffed a pair of antacids into her mouth, a little forcefully, and gently closed her mouth, but by that point Sachiko didn't need it. She bit down and chewed, once, twice, three times, and then swallowed. The relief was almost immediate, and all at once she felt inexpressibly better.

After a moment, Sachiko turned around to face her savior, and somewhere, her mother laughed at her.

It was her butler, Takashi. Elderly but certainly not old by anybody's standards, least of all his own. She smiled at him as best she could, and he grinned back warmly. "You have had quite enough aspirin this month, Miss Ogasawara," he repeated. "I believe perhaps that you should see a doctor."

Sachiko took a quick look around—Sei and Yumi were crouched near her, Sei supporting her head and Yumi stroking her hand, something she only now began to feel again. Rei was nowhere to be found, and Shimako was speaking quietly with Yoshino.

"I have guests, Takashi," she said quietly. "I'm just feeling a little tired. I don't believe there's any cause for—"

Pain exploded again in her stomach and chest then, as though out of spite, and _then_ she threw up. She didn't get a chance to see what color it was, nor where it landed, because immediately after her stomach emptied itself, the world around her went dark and all she could remember after that was the sound of her mother, shrieking and shouting.

* * *

At first, Sachiko wasn't certain if she was in her own home or somebody else's. Her first thought was, _did I let myself into somebody's house and forget to properly announce myself?_

Then she opened her eyes and realized it was neither—Sachiko was in a large, absurdly comfortable white bed, and her guests were seated around her, blocking her view of an absurdly small window. In the other direction there was a wooden door which gave her a pleasant view of an absurdly clean, white hallway where men and women in white and blue coats hustled back and forth.

She looked back at her guests, and Yumi's eyes lit up. Her mind reeled for a moment before she steadied it. She felt groggy

 _A lady is_ never _groggy. If a lady makes the mistake of oversleeping, she will be just as pert and prim as if she had been up and about for several hours already_

but not enough to forget herself. "I'm very sorry," she said. Jagged needles thrust themselves into her throat with each word. "I didn't mean to—"

"Ah," someone male and perky said. "You're awake, Miss Ogasawara. That's wonderful."

There was a rustling sound as the heads of Sei, Rei, Yoshino, and Shimako turned as one to face her, and Sachiko turned back towards the door to find a man in a white coat standing there, holding a clipboard and smiling brightly.

"What—" more pain, and this time Sachiko began to cough furiously. She reached out with one hand for something, anything, to steady herself with, and somebody took it with their own hand. _Yumi._ "What happened to me?"

The man walked towards her now, setting his clipboard down on a small table near Sachiko's bed. "You passed out, Miss Ogasawara, and I'd say with good reason."

She watched him expectantly, and he looked back at her, as though waiting for something out of her. She realized she was missing something, and a second later, so did he.

"I'm sorry," he apologized. "I sometimes forget that not everybody had to memorize hospital policy." He chuckled, and said, "I'll have to ask your guests to leave before I discuss—"

"My guests," Sachiko rasped, "are my friends, and are privy to any information that I am."

The doctor looked at her for a moment, his smile fading. "I'll have to ask you to sign a consent form stating as much, you know."

"Very well," Sachiko said. "Please, continue."

The doctor found his smile again, and did. "You have been wrestling a fairly nasty peptic ulcer for quite a long time, Miss Ogasawara. It has made very significant headway eating the lining out of parts of your stomach. It's a small wonder that this hasn't happened already."

Sachiko blinked. _An ulcer? Am I that…_ She opened her mouth to say something, anything, but Yumi interjected, very impolitely, at that. "Could _onee…_ could Sachiko have…" she paused, fumbling a word.

The doctor turned politely to Yumi. "Yes?" he _politely prompted,_ and Sachiko bit back a laugh.

Yumi shook her head once and spoke slowly. "Could it be possible that Miss Sachiko suffered from too much…" she glanced at Sachiko, who actually took a moment to realize what it was that Yumi was doing: She was being a lady. She was asking if Sachiko was under a lot of stress without asking. She was showing her training.

 _Do you like that?_

Sachiko wasn't sure.

"Stress?" the doctor asked, and then laughed. "Maybe that was what brought that attack on, and I'd have to ask your _onee-sama_ about that," he gave Yumi a small, fatherly wink, "but peptic ulcers are caused by a disease. It's easily curable, and the damage reversible. It's a good thing we got to her when we did, though," he leveled a stern gaze at Sachiko, the kind that said, _if I was your doctor, I'd have given you a stern talking-to, and then a helpful kick in the ass for this,_ "because if she had continued the way she was going, we may have had some hemorrhaging on our hands."

"There was no blood in any of her vomit," Sei offered helpfully, and then snorted a laugh. Sachiko looked at her, and saw that she was wearing a different outfit than the one that she'd come in.

The doctor smiled appreciatively. "Thank you, Sei."

Sachiko frowned. _How did he know her name?_ This, unfortunately, was a piece of information that she could only obtain by sharp inquiry, which meant that she couldn't _gently prompt_ it out of anybody.

"I'm going to write you a prescription for an antibacterial and an antacid," the doctor said, turning his firm gaze back onto Sachiko. "And I want you to start eating properly and stop taking so much aspirin. If you're getting chronic headaches, you should see _your_ doctor about that. _That_ little piece I got from your fiancée, Mister Kashiwagi."

Yumi gasped audibly; whether at the latter piece of information or the former, Sachiko wasn't sure of, but she got the feeling that it was very important nonetheless.

To tell the truth, though, Sachiko hadn't really realized that she _wasn't_ eating properly or that she _was_ going overboard on aspirin. She hadn't noticed any hunger pangs in her stomach—when her stomach _did_ hurt, she took an antacid and a nap. By the time she awoke, she felt better. She ate…

 _When_ do _you eat?_

She ate. She must have been eating. Otherwise she'd be a lot thinner  
 _you fat, stupid girl who will want you if you eat_  
wouldn't she?

Honestly, she wasn't sure. But if Suguru had noticed it…

The doctor stood up, bowed slightly, and said, "I'm going to go get your prescription. I suggest you rest. If you want, I can arrange for a cab to pick you up here."

It occurred to her that she didn't even know where _here_ was. She was at some sort of doctor's office or hospital, and Sei seemed to know people here, but beyond that the whole thing was sort of a mystery to her.

"No need," Sei said. "I'll take them home."

"Very well," the doctor said, and then bowed once more and left.

All heads turned first to Sachiko, who looked immediately at Sei for an explanation. Sei merely shrugged. "He's my doctor. He...helped me out not long ago, so when I found out we were coming here, I called him and asked him to meet us at the ambulance bay. He's very good." She sounded like she meant it, but not like she cared. Not about the doctor, anyway.

She definitely looked as though she cared about Sachiko. Her gaze was as worried as Sachiko had ever seen it. Which, to be fair, was not saying much.

"I'll go get the car," Sei said. "Rei, Yoshino, Shimako, you can come help me."

It was quite possibly the most transparent fabrication in history, but Sachiko appreciated it nonetheless. They stood up, each paid a small sympathy

 _Sympathy is one of your primary weapons as a Lady_

and left.

And then it was just Sachiko and Yumi again.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Author's notes

This one is distinctly less disturbing than the rest. I hope you guys weren't too attached to a vision of Sachiko as the world's biggest mental case, because, in spite of how frightening I think her head is, she's not all-gone.

* * *

 _Let me be the fire in your head._

* * *

Chapter 5

Beyond the sun

In an ideal relationship between a _petite soeur_ and her _grande soeur, awkward silences_ were what you shared when you were both in the lavatory, unable to make conversation. Few relationships were so ideal; even Rei and Yoshino, as comfortable as they had been as very small children, back before it became really important to fill every gap in conversation with inane, meaningless words, shared the occasional awkward space; sometimes over the phone, sometimes walking to school on a bad day.

The same held true for Yumi and Sachiko. And though neither would have admitted it in a court of law, they spent their first minute together, alone, in over three months in mildly uncomfortable silence. It was, at least, uncomfortable on Sachiko's end; later, for a while, they would both attribute it to the bad taste left in their mouths by Sei's tasteless exit, or to Sachiko's embarrassment about what had happened, or…

Or really, anything except for what it was.

Sachiko, not entirely sure what to say in the wake of…everything, really, stared intently at the hem of Yumi's jeans, willing herself not to think about what was happening so hard; trained social butterfly or not, anybody who worried themselves excessively froze up eventually,  
 _and lost_  
and that wasn't Sachiko. She hadn't even frozen up when  
 _not thinking about that_  
her stomach hurt.

In fact, it hurt quite a bit. She put a hand protectively over her stomach, clutching it in just that little bit further, as though if she huddled herself up as tight as she could, maybe her pain would vanish completely.

Yumi's eyes widened and she gave a little gasp; Sachiko imagined it was, for her, a bit like watching an epileptic wince in pain; unsure as to whether or not they were about to have an attack, _and then what do you do?_

What _would_ Yumi do? If Sachiko were to have some inexplicable attack right here?

 _Would she get fed up?_ If you're not going to make an effort to heal, I'm not going to stick around while you mope around. _Is that what she would say?_

The pain lanced up through Sachiko's torso again, and then turned to something worse, something queasy and sickening. She gasped, clamped a hand to her mouth as her eyes widened in the kind of terror only visible on a sober person's face just before they vomited.

" _Onee-sama_!" Yumi cried, and, in a single fearless, graceful motion befitting of some of the nun-nurses at Lillian, grabbed the (currently empty) vomit-pan from the table by Sachiko's bed, stood up, and brought it underneath Sachiko's mouth. With her other hand, cool and dry, she pulled Sachiko's hair back gently from where it had been clustering about her cheeks. A second later, Sachiko lost the battle with her gorge, moved her hand, and threw up into the pan, giving a small, frightened retch with each heave of her stomach.

When she was empty, _(when did I have food in the first place?)_ she looked back up at Yumi, slowly, her mind swimming with fear and shame. It took her a second to fully comprehend the look on the girl's face, but she needn't have feared; Yumi was looking down at her, her expression equal parts concern and  
 _love_  
affection, and smiling, her open face hiding nothing. Her face _couldn't_ hide anything. Yumi's face, Sachiko felt, could not have been anything but the most honest thing on the planet.

Her _petite soeur_ didn't say anything. How could she? She couldn't ask if Sachiko was okay, because it was obvious she wasn't, head hovering not a foot above a pan full of her own vomit, still occasionally spilling forth a wet hiccup. She couldn't ask if she could do anything to help, because she knew that Sachiko couldn't ask for anything better than this. She couldn't talk about something off-topic, to try and get Sachiko's mind off of it, because…

Because it wouldn't have been honest. It wouldn't have been Yumi.

So she stood there, her hand on Sachiko's forehead, cooling it and holding her long, dark hair back, her other hand holding the vomit-pan under Sachiko's head until it was clear that Sachiko was done with everything but the hiccups. _Those_ battles, Sachiko thought, she would win. Before had been…

What had it been?

Setting the pan down carefully—a lot of what was inside was liquid, which meant that there hadn't really been that much in her stomach after all—Yumi sat down next to Sachiko and put an arm around her a little protectively.

 _Look how easily she fills the role you can't,_ that small, bitter thing inside of her pointed out. _What kind of mother will you be if you can't even act like a decent_ onee-sama

 _What kind of_ wife _will you be…_

She pushed the thought out of her mouth, about half a second before Yumi pulled Sachiko's head to her shoulder, and for a moment, she felt her stomach vanish and her head begin a steady ascent towards the clouds. A smile drifted vaguely onto her face, and her lips parted slightly as she let out her breath in a small sigh…

And then, as the air rose from her mouth and passed her nose, the thought hit her like an alarm, an agonizing, painful sound that gave her the impression that maybe her brain was a bell, and her skull the little red casing that made the sound really _echo_ in a person's ear, gifting them with that lasting headache that reminds them, _hey, just so you don't forget, you stood a little too close to that alarm today._ She jerked upwards, away from Yumi, her hand going to her mouth for the second time.

It wasn't a bell in her head, though. Her brain vibrated against her skull and the sound it made was _BREATH._ Breath. Her breath, sour with the odor and taste of vomit, still fresh in her mouth.

Her breath. She had just vomited twice; as her lips parted, this became fairly apparent from the sour, pungent odor emanating from between her teeth. This wasn't just a little error in etiquette, one which might cause her mother or old etiquette coach to snap at her harshly; it was an outrage, like wearing a high-cut skirt to a formal occasion, or breaking wind at the dinner table. It wasn't just breaching manners; it was taking a shit on them. As far as that bell  
 _BREATH YOU DISGUSTING BITCH_  
was concerned, she may as well have not brushed her teeth that morning, or any morning for the past week before an important event. She may as well have vomited on Yumi. It was the absolute epitome of  
 _yumi must think im  
how could anyone  
BREATH how can she stand to be anywhere near me when im this disgusting_  
Sachiko felt her gorge rise again, for the second time in less than ten minutes.

 _Stress? Maybe that was what brought_ that _attack on…_ he said. _But peptic ulcers are caused by a disease._ Did that mean that her stomach just rose and fell at intervals, or was there something to that _stress_ thing?

Something was _gently prompting_ her head down, back towards where Yumi's shoulder  
 _couldn't be_  
was. It was soft and warm, and it seemed to possess a queer cooling ability as well—the burn in her stomach faded nearly as soon as she touched it, Yumi's hand still gently cupping her jaw.

"Does it hurt very much?" Yumi said quietly, her voice laden with sympathy, but underneath it, Sachiko saw something most  
 _disgusting_  
ladylike: It was Sachiko's _out._ All she had to do was lie and say no, and Yumi would let her go, and that would be the end of it.

But it wasn't, that was the unfathomable thing. It wasn't, because _Yumi,_ for her training from Sachiko and the whole of Lillian, for all of her faking it in front of everybody from Sachiko's parents to the teachers, wasn't. She could be ladylike, but deep down, she _wasn't;_ and Sachiko knew, somehow, that that was what she was seeing right now, was _deep-down._

Deep down, Yumi was just caring. More like one of the older nuns, with their sly winks and their oddly practical, if oft-outdated, ( _if a boy keeps adjusting his_ jinbei _around you, watch out, he's down a well without a rope for you_ ) advice, than the Ladies (with a capital 'L') that seemed to spread themselves across Japan, produced at a steady rate of a few hundred a year by that school; the ones with perfect posture, cool, calculating speech, and reserved smiles that never seemed to reach their eyes.

Sachiko had an _out,_ provided free of charge, if unwittingly, by Yumi. All she had to do was take it, and Yumi would leave her to tend to her unkempt appearance; and unkempt it was, she knew, with a kind of preternatural sense that she could never properly explain: Her hair was tousled, as though she'd just woken from a long sleep, (which she had) and if she were to look in a mirror, she was almost certain she would find dark rings about her eyes from where her makeup had rubbed in. She looked like something her mother would have actually deemed to describe with a dirty word, and even thinking about it brought that familiar queasy bubble back into her stomach. She looked _awful,_ and she knew it, and she thought that Yumi knew it too. Of course she would have wanted Yumi gone— _everyone_ gone.

The trick to it, though, was that she didn't want to. That wasn't to say that she wasn't tempted, even _pulled_ to by her mother's voice, still ringing in her head like a fire alarm. Only that another part of her—a part fundamentally imbued with what some might have called a _deep courage_ —refused, flat out. It was a part of her that Sachiko had rarely seen, and knew almost nothing about. Courage was something that Ladies needed, her mother had said, but only later; for now, she was best to bury that part of her and do what needed to be done.

And yet, here it was.

And here was Yumi. Maybe Sachiko did look awful; maybe her hair _was_ tousled and unkempt, maybe flecked with the bits of vomit that Sei wasn't able to get out, and yet, Yumi still ran her fingers through it gently. Maybe her face _did_ look as though it hadn't been made up in weeks, pale and distraught; and yet, Yumi still cupped it gently in her small, soft hands.

"No," Sachiko murmured, and the alarms only blew stronger in her head, but this time, somebody was shielding her from them: That _somebody_ that she had always known, but had forgotten existed; the part which her family had so unmercifully crushed every time it had poked its head out and stood up to their conditioning.

When Sachiko's grandmother died, it had fought tooth and nail with the side of her that refused to be seen crying in public. It had fought with every ounce of its courage to do the thing which required the most bravery of all, and let her guard down around Yumi; it had almost succeeded, many times, and so Sachiko had called it cowardice, and had called her cowardice bravery.

 _True strength,_ it said, its voice clear and true, poking its head out from its grave for the first time in many months, _comes from trusting others._

And Sachiko knew it was right.

So she let herself be held. And after a while, she took Yumi in her arms and held her close as well, and _then_ her _petite soeur_ did what she had been desperately needing to do for so long: She began to cry softly, and the pressure about Sachiko's breasts increased as Yumi pulled her _onee-sama_ close.

"I missed you, Yumi," Sachiko whispered, speaking with honesty so pure it was relieving. "I missed you so much. I…" _didn't know what to do with myself without you, and all those things that_ you _taught_ me— _how to be honest, with others and with myself; how to let my guard down and vent all of the pressure that never stops building inside of me…I forgot all of them._

Her mother's voice went silent. Of course it did: It wasn't really her mother. It was her; it was her own cowardice, taught to her by somebody who was afraid of her daughter's strength, afraid of her daughter becoming independent of her, of not needing her anymore; by somebody, maybe, who was just afraid of being truly alone.

"I know, _onee-sama,_ "Yumi whispered, her hands trembling on Sachiko's jaw.

 _She didn't miss you;_ that voice, that horrible, terrible voice, seemed to have redoubled itself. _She doesn't need you._ You're _the one so dependant on_

 _Shut up. Shut up, you horrible, horrible woman, and get the hell away from me._

And the voice fell silent again, and this time, Sachiko thought, it was gone for good. It was a mistake that would, eventually, nearly cost her everything she held dearly to herself, but perhaps, for now, it was necessary.

After all, if she didn't relieve her stress, how would she be able to leave the hospital bed?

Not that, right now, she had any intention of moving anywhere.

Yumi tracked their doctor down about half an hour later, after she and Sachiko had stopped crying, and spoken a few choice words to each other. Most of them had been words of endearment, but not all—some had been about more present things. She was only gone for perhaps ten minutes, but they were not easy minutes for Sachiko, who felt a little niggle at the back of her head almost as soon as the girl left: A children's tune, familiar in the way that a man you saw every day but never spoke to might have been familiar:

 _All-gone all-gone cattail fish is all-gone, ne'er seen again_

 _where to where to into the sea its so blue; now we start again_

 _All-gone all-gone its all-gone._

It gnawed at the back of her sanity for reasons that she couldn't explain, but she shut it out. It was easier this time.

The doctor, who arrived alongside Yumi, gave Sachiko a final examination—her eyes, her mouth, her heartbeat, (a little weak, but that was to be expected, he said, just no more blood-thinners). He even gave a quick examination of the foul-smelling pan near Sachiko's bed, and then asked Sachiko if she had been under a lot of stress lately.

Not knowing what else to say, Sachiko nodded, and he told her to keep away from whatever it was for a while—stress, he said, caused an influx of stomach acid, which was what caused that burning feeling people felt in their stomachs when they were nervous or anxious. He added, in the sort of undertone usually reserved for talking about private bodily functions, that if she was fond of the bottle or the pipe, now would be a good time to give those up as well. She told him that she did nothing of the sort, and he smiled jovially, as though he hadn't said anything at all. "You're excused," he said. "Just get plenty of rest, take your medication—I gave you your prescription, didn't I? Good—and make sure you take it easy for a while." He flashed them an easy smile, and Sachiko immediately understood why Sei had trusted him. It was the kind of smile that said, _just between us. All of this is just between us._

The doctor left, and Sachiko got dressed—Yumi had brought her fresh clothes when they'd left for the hospital—behind a curtain, since the glass windows into the hall were large enough that a nurse could see a patient if the door was closed and she was in trouble.

When they walked out of the hospital, it was hand-in-hand, Sachiko's heart burning as it hadn't in a long time; not since Lillian, and a sweeter time than this had been.

Yumi seemed a little distant, but she had told Sachiko about that well in advance: She was thinking. About what, Sachiko didn't know, but she allowed herself to be content in waiting. Yumi would speak when she was good and ready.

She always did.

 


End file.
